The First Tribe (10 page)

Dasheen reached down to help Sabra sit in front of him on the banta. “I still can’t figure out your repulsion to the meat thing,” he muttered. He held up a hand, and then swiped it down. “Make haste, beast riders.”

The banta sliced their way through a patch of thick brush, and they emerged on the banks of a river. “We go south,” Dasheen ordered. The banta picked up speed and glided down the sand in their smooth gait.

“Won’t Shiru tire if we push her so hard?” Sabra’s bottom was beginning to ache.

“Banta’s can run at top speed for a full day. At this pace, it will be sunset before we need to stop. After tonight, we only plan to travel during the day. We have never been in these lands before.”

Sabra watched the river while they glided south. She resisted Dasheen’s efforts to throw a skin over her, and the sun was giving her a rosy pink glow. “I want to see, Dasheen.”

In midmorning, Dasheen said, “You are burning, Sabra.” He pulled the light skin over her. “Do as I say, girl.” He smiled when her shoulders sagged in resignation.

When they stopped for lunch, things looked much the same. Trees were along each bank with high mountain ridges behind them. They mounted Shiru, and Dasheen felt her adjusting her seat. He put his hands around her waist and lifted her onto his thighs. “If this doesn’t work, I can throw you onto your belly again,” he suggested.

“My mouth filled with dirt,” Sabra admitted. Besides, she could only see the ground and the banta’s feet riding that way. She did not argue when he covered her again, but she was very pleased when he removed the tarp.

“Do you think they are following us yet?” Ranal asked.

Masan answered. “No. Jarung would be leading them and blowing that horn of his. We will have plenty of warning.”

The group sat quietly eating dinner. The staple was fruit, and as the beast riders did not want to light a fire in case the Kirabi were after them, they settled for dried meat. The women discovered that if they did not look at the men eating, the smell did not bother them.

“The women planned for this,” Palla said.

“What?” The three men stared at her.

“Don’t you see? Think about it. They never let your fathers touch us… only you. They arranged for the festival without consulting them. I think they are going to give us as much time as they can to get away,” Palla said.

“Why the conspiracy?” Masan asked.

Dasheen was nodding his head in understanding. “They had to. They had to keep the leaders’ minds occupied. The bigger question is why did they
want
us to leave?”

“Your mother wants to be leader,” Sabra suggested. “Perhaps she thinks you would be second in line.”

Dasheen shrugged. “None of it matters. We have split from First Tribe and must devise our own leadership.”

“That, and work, Dasheen. It is no small issue that we will not have slaves to do the chores,” Masan replied.

Dasheen walked with Sabra down by the river. “I was so frightened you would not come for me.”

“My little flame siren, I could think of nothing else.” Dasheen walked in front of her. Her hair shined like fire in the moonlight, and her eyes were lit to a lustrous green. He ran his hands down her sides and she trembled.

“Dasheen, do you think you can get me something to wear?”

“Right now? Having you clothed is not what I have in mind.”

Sabra had escaped naked, and the men seemed quite pleased to keep the women that way. “Make me something from the tarp,” she suggested.

Dasheen shook his head and kicked the sand. “Shiru,” he hissed. Bantas had extraordinary hearing, and the creature was beside him in an instant. He untied his hair and held up the pera skin strip. The banta’s nostrils flared. “Fetch,” he ordered. The beast took off. “It will still have to be tanned to work with.”

They walked back to a copse of trees where he had spread a blanket. Sabra felt her insides turn to jelly. Even without the Fista’s elixir, she was aroused and excited to have him beside her. He stripped off his clothes, and Sabra saw his jutting erection outlined in the moonlight.

“Oh, Mother,” Sabra sighed.

Dasheen lay down beside her. He held her face and ran his thumbs across her temples. Sabra reached her arms up and pulled his long hair away from his face. Little reflected moons lit his dark eyes. His head bent and she felt his lips on hers. It gave her a warm feeling, and when his tongue stroked into her mouth she gasped in surprise.

With tentative pushes and retreats, she finally began searching his mouth with her tongue. His bronze body was warm against her and her legs squeezed the muscled thigh he had placed between them.

His mouth abruptly left hers to nuzzle the peak of her breast. He licked and sucked hungrily, toying with the stip ring while her hands stayed clasped in his long, dark hair. He nipped the tip of her nipple, twisting the ring with his tongue. Sabra arched in response, panting in the pain and the pleasure of the sensation.

Dasheen lifted his head and smiled. “Hardly more than a bite, but definitely not tasteless.” His lips feathered down her soft belly, and Sabra squirmed when he knelt between her thighs and spread her sex lips. His finger ran up and down her slit until she was coated with her own cream and delirious with a yearning need to have him inside her. Sabra writhed in distress. “Please, I need you inside me.”

Dasheen rose and centered on her channel. In a single thrust, he plunged into her and her nails gripped into his shoulders. “Oh,” Sabra moaned. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper.

He thrust into her tight wetness, confused by the emotion he was feeling. With the slaves, it was purely a physical need and release. With every plunge into Sabra he felt a pull deep inside his chest. Dasheen could feel the heat of his seed leaving his aching sack, filling his shaft.

Sabra began to shudder, and she fell into a wave of passionate release. Inside, she felt his seed jerking from his cock while the two of them clung tightly and pressed into each other as they climaxed.

Sabra curled onto him and lay her head on his chest. “Have I thanked you for rescuing me?”

“One hundred times,” Dasheen replied, and he kissed the top of her head. “Sleep, girl. We have a long journey in the morning.”

They traveled for more than a week. Dasheen made her a tunic out of the tarp so she could watch the surroundings while they rode. Her pera hide was stuffed into a nayello skin with herbs to clean the fur. If anyone had followed, they had either lost the trail or turned back. The group of wanderers were comfortable enough to light fires at night, and the women settled for turning their backs to the men while they ate.

* * * * *

They were in deep woods and the bantas were struggling to slice through the vegetation. “Perhaps we should turn back towards the river,” Ranal suggested after two days of fighting the forest.

“No,” Dasheen said. “I feel something drawing me forward.”

“When will we stop, Dasheen?” Sabra asked.

“We will know the place.”

“How?”

He squeezed her. “Your Mother of Life will let us know.”

Mother did, at midday. Without warning, the jungle ended, and the bantas walked out on a wide lush green meadow. On the other side, a huge waterfall crashed from the cliffs leaving rainbows in the mist.

“Oh, Dasheen,” Sabra gasped.

All the weary travelers dismounted the bantas. “We are First Tribe,” Dasheen yelled. His deep voice echoed off the canyon walls. “And we are home.”

Epilogue

The Fista woman stood at the edge of the woods, and then dashed into the trees and over a rock wall. It was possible the Vastara had not come down from their caves to harvest after the capture last year. She held her hands around her mouth and her hoarse voice moaned a call of longing.

For two days, Chaucht slept on the jungle floor and traveled by day, deeper into the forest and wailing her call. At last, a small, ancient figure walked towards her, seemingly melting out of the shifon tree trunk behind him.

The Vastara had returned to the practice of placing sentries. The Fista slave had been watched as she crossed the meadow. Some followed her progress up the cliffs, while other Vastara studied the field to see if the Kirabi were waiting. After three days, and no sign of the beast riders, Yalani decided to approach her. “What is it you are seeking, Fista?”

The beast was exhausted and weary from her frightening journey. “I am alone, Vastara. I bring word from Palla, daughter of the Mother of Life.”

Yalani’s eyes filled with tears. “Our daughters live?” He could not imagine the tortures they had survived.

“All but one. There was a woman named Seela who died in sacrifice the first night they were delivered to the Kirabi settlement.” Chaucht’s throat was hoarse and dry, and a woman she had not noticed approached her and handed her a nayello flask of water.

“And Sabra? She lives?” Chabil had spent many tortured nights, considering the sacrifice her friend had made to save her.

“Sabra lives,” Chaucht replied. “It is because of her and Palla that I have come to seek out the wisdom of your tansas.”

Chaucht explained how the captives were treated, and she paid no heed to their wails and chanting of despair. She described how the beast riders were planning an escape far south with the Vastara captives. “They are pleased with these men. They will be happy and protected, and relieved to be leaving the Kirabi settlement.”

It was when that Chaucht told them of the entire scheme had been a ruse to ensure a superior tribe for future Kirabi’s to enslave that the Vastara noticed the cold hatred in the Fista’s gaze. It had been brewing just below the surface of story.

Chaucht looked at Lanasee, leader of the tansas. “Palla told my grandmother and aunt that the Vastara would understand my anger towards the Kirabi. I, like many generations before me, was born into slavery. The other tribes that have been bred for their enjoyment have agreed this time must end. The Vastara must return to the sunlight and their position as First Tribe.”

Chaucht spent two more days with the tansa and Yalani. While the healer taught her the potion she sought, Yalani tried to dissuade her from part of her plan. In the end, he understood her reasons. He walked with her back to the cliffs, and he whispered, “May the Mother of Life protect you.” She dropped to the ground and sprinted back through the trees to cross the meadow where Plesan waited anxiously.

It took two years more before the Kirabi realized that no women had bred, not among the beast riders nor any of the slave tribes. The tansa potion had been simple to conceal with the flavor and aromas in the stewing food pot. It was potent, and very little was needed to be ingested to render the women infertile.

Yalani did not understand the Fista’s commitment that the slave tribes desired to be incapacitated. He had argued that it would be against the Mother of Life and Her doctrine. The Fista explained the need of their sacrifice. If they did not share the food, the Kirabi would know.

The creature tribes felt their time should end with that of the beast riders, as they shared their past. They spent their final years with the Jueger and other beasts slowly escaping in small groups. The Kirabi were distracted with mourning the impending loss of their tribe, and rarely bothered to go after them. Within a century, the Kirabi
did
die off, never enjoying a capturing quest south.

The beast riders and their Vastara women had built a settlement that rang with laughter and passionate sounds when the moons lit the meadow. They bred generations that melded Kirabi strength with Vastara wisdom and ritual, eventually outgrowing their settlement boundaries, and populating Zapathia.

Stories were told around fires at night. There was a meadow far to the north, with cliffs and forests across the grasses. Legends held that a mystical tribe lived in that land. It was declared sacred, and no one crossed the barrier of the meadow. Some had tried to catch a glimpse of the people from the other side of the field, and it was said that in early first season, when the snows had just melted, you could see them walk out of the pre-dawn mists and onto the meadow.

The End

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